Saturday, July 22, 2017

In many ways, Virginia's 2017 gubernatorial election may prove to be a litmus test on Donald Trump's toxicity outside of knuckle dragging, Christofascist dominated red states. While the GOP candidate, Ed Gillespie, is trying to walk a tight rope and not directly attack Donald Trump while bloviating the same platitudes and snake oil promises that have been the hallmark of the GOP since 1980, the reality is that he is inseparably married to Trump. This is especially so in light of Corey Stewart's near win in the June GOP primary during which Stewart campaigned on the same lies promises as Trump and openly courted and embraced white supremacists and bigots. My July, 2017, VEER Magazine column described the face off between Democrat Ralph Northam and Gillespie in part as follows:

Northam and Gillespie are polar opposites on numerous issues
ranging from women's reproductive rights, access to healthcare, LGBT issues,
climate change, to rising sea levels, the later being something Hampton Roads
residents are increasing concerned about.
To me, it is difficult to adequately stress just how critical it
is for a Democrat to succeed Terry McAuliffe as Virginia's next governor. With a Democrat as governor, there is at least some basic firewall against the
most egregious initiatives of the Republican Party of Virginia - such as Del.
Bob Marshall's 2017 horrific anti-LGBT HB 1612 that sought to outdo North
Carolina's infamous HB2 - and Congressional Republicans' efforts to throw
millions of Americans off of health insurance coverage (so as to give a $700
billion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans).

Ralph Northam supports equal pay for equal work, paid family
leave, quality and affordable healthcare for women and medically necessary
abortions (as decided by a woman and her physician, not mostly aging men),
Medicaid expansion, and an "economy for everyone" that makes Virginia
a welcoming place for new businesses and all citizens, be they gay, straight,
Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew. As a veteran himself, Northam supports
programs that will assist returning military veterans in securing jobs in the
private sector while also assuring that quality medical care is available to
those who need it. He also believes in
common sense gun control measures and (i) cast a tie-breaking vote as
lieutenant governor to block legislation that would have
allowed Virginians to carry concealed weapons without permits, and (ii) fought
legislation to allow people to bring guns into bars and other places where
alcohol was served. Simply put, guns and
alcohol are a deadly combination. To
view all of Northam's positions, visit his campaign webpage at http://ralphnortham.com/.Ed Gillespie's campaign webpage contains many generalities
that may sound good at first blush if one isn't familiar with the Republican
Party 2016 platform. But on further examination, there are few details and
little to show how Gillespie would deliver on his campaign promises. Then there is the fact that he's never held
elected office in Virginia or anywhere else - look to the White House to see
how well placing someone with no experience has played out to date. Most
troubling is Gillespie's pledge to reinstitute "conservative
principles" which translates to banning abortion, pushing for even more
lax gun control laws, slashing taxes for the wealthy, and most likely slavishly
bowing to the dictates of The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group
that parades as a "Christian values" organization while pressing for
license to discriminate laws and disseminating untruths about LGBT citizens and
racial and religious minorities.

Also of
great concern is Gillespie's razor thin victory over far right extremist, Corey
Stewart, in the Republican primary last month. Stewart's campaign focused on
everything that Donald Trump has championed which decent, moral people find
abhorrent: religious extremism, unlimited gun rights, propping up the moribund
coal industry, and personhood status for fetuses, thereby banning most forms of
contraception. . . . . Gillespie will be
under immense pressure to court Stewart supporters (and The Family Foundation) in
the run up to the November election by making similar promises to far right voters.

A piece in the New York Times has picked up this narrative and looks at Gillespie's effort to sell himself as something different from what he truly is and to distance himself from Donald Trump's poisonous agenda and persona. Here are highlights:

HOT SPRINGS, Va. — Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam of Virginia on Saturday
used the first debate of the state’s race for governor to assail President
Trump as a liar and a “dangerous man,” wagering that the growing backlash
against the president will overwhelm Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee, in a
state drifting to the political left.

Mr. Gillespie, a former chairman of the
Republican National Committee with deep roots in the party’s establishment,
sought to strike a delicate balance when pressed about Mr. Trump, who is highly
unpopular here. He refused to say Mr. Trump’s name, but warned that Mr. Northam, a Democrat, risked hurting
Virginia’s economy — which relies greatly on the federal government — by
attacking the president so fiercely.

“If the shoe fits, wear it,” Mr. Northam, a neurosurgeon, shot back,
adding that his assessment “comes quite close to an accurate diagnosis.”

The
Virginia governor’s race is the country’s marquee election this fall, and it is
already drawing millions of dollars from both national parties.

Mr. Northam, a low-key Army veteran who twice voted for President
George W. Bush before entering politics, is hardly the picture of the so-called
liberal “resistance” to the president. But as he attempts to succeed Gov. Terry
McAuliffe, a fellow Democrat who, by law, cannot seek consecutive
terms, Mr. Northam is using strikingly caustic language to galvanize Virginia
voters who are appalled by the president, but may be reluctant to vote in an
off-year governor’s race.

“As we say on the Eastern
Shore, he lies like a rug,” Mr. Northam, who grew up across the Chesapeake Bay,
said of Mr. Trump in his thick Tidewater drawl.

Targeting
the president on the health care proposal of congressional Republicans — which
he called “Trumpcare” — and on climate policy and abortion rights, the
lieutenant governor said his rival, Mr. Gillespie, had “stood there and said
nothing.”Mr.
Gillespie is in something of a political vise. On one side are the more
centrist voters in and around Virginia’s cities. On the other is the
president’s loyal rural base, voters who overwhelmingly
supported Corey Stewart, a surprisingly strong rival in last month’s Republican primary. Mr.
Stewart has refused to enthusiastically back Mr. Gillespie, . . . .Mr. Gillespie’s challenge, beyond the specter of Mr. Trump and the
state’s increasingly blue tint, was made clear in the headlines that greeted
Virginians on the morning of the debate: The state’s unemployment rate is now 3.7
percent, the lowest it has been in more than nine years.

Mr. Northam sought to link
himself to Mr. McAuliffe, the popular governor, by trumpeting the “new Virginia
economy,” while criticizing Mr. Gillespie for talking down the state’s progress
since the Great Recession.

Mr.
Gillespie [falsely] repeatedly claimed that Virginia ranked 39th of 50 states
in economic growth and was on the verge of becoming closer to the “rusty”
states of the northeast than it was other Sun Belt dynamos.

I have one word to categorize Gillespie: LIAR. When it comes to truth and veracity, I place Gillespie in the same league as Trump: if his lips are moving, then he is most likely lying. As with the Christofascists, Republican candidates feel free to lie in whatever ways that are helpful to their divisive and exclusionary. As a former GOP national chair, Gillespie is a consummate liar. His smooth talking should not be confused for honesty and truthfulness. If you want to know what Gillespie really stands for, look no farther than Trump and Corey Stewart. Gillespie must be defeated in November.

Oh, and as for Gillespie's negative comments about Virginia's economy, check out the following articles that underscore Gillespie's dishonest: Here Where Virginia is ranked 13th), or here where increases in states GDP are compared, or here where increases in personal income are noted, or here where states' economic outlooks are ranked (Virginia is 11th).

The last post looked at the impeding constitutional crisis that Donald Trump is likely to trigger if he tries to fire Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, who it seems increasingly is focusing in on the root cause of the Trump campaign's willingness to collude with Russia: illegal financial transactions with Russians and likely money laundering. Trump and his family are all most likely involved as is Jared Kushner and a number of Trump cronies. As conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin notes in a column, "Why would he [Trump] do those things unless there was something really,
really bad to find?" You simply do not slander and undermine a special prosecutor and consider pardon powers if there is nothing to be found. In this situation, it will take three Republican senators to join with Democrat senators to stop Trump's demolition of the rule of law. A piece in The Atlantic ponders whether and who those senators could be. Will they put the nation ahead of their political party. Here are article excerpts:

By midnight on
July 20, 2017, it seemed increasingly likely that Donald Trump will fire the
special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Mueller embodies
what is admirable in U.S. public service: a wounded and decorated Marine Corps
veteran of Vietnam, longtime prosecutor and U.S. Attorney under both Republican
and Democratic presidents, 12-year director of the FBI under both George W.
Bush and Barack Obama, unconnected to scandal or partisan suspicions at any
point.

Donald Trump
embodies the reverse.

Yet for now
Trump has the legal power, directly or indirectly, to dismiss Mueller, if the
investigation gets too close to Trump’s obviously sensitive financial concerns.
And Trump himself, unaware of history and oblivious to rules,
norms, and constraints, has given every indication that this will be his next
step.

What happens
then? Brian Beutler, of the New Republic, has just put up a bleak scenario, arguing that there
really are no guardrails—or, as we observed in Mitch McConnell’s unprecedented
stonewalling of a Supreme Court nomination, that the constitutional system’s
real protections have been norms rather than formal rules. Someone unconcerned
by those norms—McConnell last year, Trump now—can in fact blast right through
them. “At the moment there are no reliable sources of accountability,” Beutler
writes. “None.”

There are 52
Americans who have it within their power to prove that dark assessment wrong.
Really, it would take a subset of just three of those 52. With the 52-48
current party lineup in the U.S. Senate, a switch of three votes of conscience
is all it would take to have this branch of government fulfill its
checks-and-balances function.

With three
votes, a Senate majority could issue subpoenas and compel sworn testimony from
Administration officials. It could empower its own thorough investigation, even
re-hiring Robert Mueller to lead it. It could compel Donald Trump to release
the tax returns about which he is so evidently nervous. It could act as if
America in fact possessed a system of rule-of-law, rather than whim-of-one-man.

Ben Sasse
could be one of those three, if he were willing to back up his lectures and
essays about ethical public life. Lindsey Graham could, since he and
John McCain have kept making the case about Trump’s recklessness. Chuck
Grassley, who would be 89 years old the next time he’d have to face the
voters. Dean Heller, who is in trouble anyway in a state Hillary
Clinton carried, and whom Trump demeans and insults. Rob Portman, who
has served in “normal” Republican administrations and could ally himself with
his state’s governor, John Kasich, as forces for a principled future GOP. Jeff
Flake, who in speeches has positioned himself with appeals to a more
moderate politics, and who could take up the Maverick mantle of his colleague
John McCain. Of course, McCain himself. Lisa Murkowski, who
originally won without Republican Party support. Susan Collins, who
drew a line at the rushed health-care bill. Richard Burr, who has made
more-or-less common cause with his Democratic colleague Mark Warner on the
Senate intelligence committee. Ron Johnson, who has just won
re-election and appears to be mad at Trump. Rand Paul, also just
elected, if he believed his radical limited-government pitch. Ted Cruz,
if he had the courage of his anti-Trump stand at last year’s GOP convention.
Even—let’s imagine here—the likes of Tom Cotton, if he were willing to
roll the dice and elevate himself as a national figure, for the post-Trump
leadership contest against the likes of Sasse, Cruz, and the rest. There are
half a dozen other conceivable candidates.

It would take
only three. Some—Grassley? Heller? McCain if he is able to vote?—might think:
What do they have to lose? They might as well wind up with dignity.
Others—Paul, Burr, Johnson, Murkowski—are so far away from re-election that a
lot will happen in the meantime. And all of them are senators, part of a body
self-consciously proud of its independence, its individual judgment, its role
in defending the long-term principles of governance.

A country of
300-plus million people, with the world’s largest economy and most powerful
military, should not rely for its orderly stability on the
decisions-of-conscience of just three people. But the United States may soon be
in that situation. These names will go down in history, depending on the
choices they make.

Sadly, the morality of Republican senators is not what it was back in the Watergate era. Be very afraid.

In the first six months of his regime, Donald Trump and his Sergeant Schultz aping Vice President, Mike Pence (younger voters can Goggle "Hogan's Heroes" if they don't get the meaning), have more than lived up to my worse fears. It is difficult to decide which is worse, the criminality, incompetence or corruption of this foul regime. Despite all of the frightening developments, evangelical Christians are standing by their führer and confirming for all to see that they are morally bankrupt and place their racism, hatred of others, and desire for special rights under the smoke screen of "religious liberty" above the demands of the Gospels' social ministry message. Now, they have delivered America where we are on the brink of a constitutional crisis which could well determine the fate of American democracy. A piece in The New Republic looks at the danger point that we are rapidly reaching. Here are highlights:

With
President Donald Trump reportedly contemplating radical measures to defend his
beleaguered administration from investigation, the United States stands on the
brink of a constitutional crisis. According to TheNew York Times,
Trump’s staff is trying to dredge up
opposition research to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s
legal team on the investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia
in last election’s election interference. TheWashington Postreports that Trump
has inquired as to whether he can pardon associates, family members, and
himself. And firing Mueller is a real possibility. As the New Republic’s
Brian Beutler argued last night, there’s every indication
that the Republican-controlled Congress will give a pass to these abuses of
power, edging the American republic closer to authoritarianism.Bob
Bauer, former White House Counsel to President Barack Obama, wrote Thursday on the
blog Lawfare that Trump’s gambit would end the investigation and leave
only impeachment as a remedy, with Trump counting on Republicans in the House
and the Senate to support him no matter what. This could pay off if the
Republicans stay in line ahead of the 2018 midterm elections: at worst, if the
Democrats took back the House, Trump would be impeached, but would remain in
power since Democrats won’t have the two-thirds votes necessary in the Senate
to remove him. Last night, Emma Loop of BuzzFeed interviewed four Republican senators about
whether firing Mueller would be a mistake. Only one, Marco Rubio of Florida,
unequivocally said yes.All
of this suggests that the constitutional crisis is also a political crisis.
Democrats and the larger resistance needs to make Mueller the next big
political battle. Defending the special counsel goes beyond defending one
single investigation; it would be a proxy for a larger effort to guard the rule
of law from a president with authoritarian aspirations. It would also be aimed
at the Republican Party, letting them know that if they refuse to stand up to
Trump’s thrashing of the rule of law, they will be held accountable at the
election booth.It
is time to make saving Mueller’s job the focus of a nationwide campaign. . . . If
Trump fires Mueller before the Democrats can make it a national issue, then the
public will be playing catch-up with the story. The better known Mueller is,
the more costly his firing would be to Trump.Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, is also thinking along these lines, suggesting
that high-level Department of Justice officials be prepared to resign if
Mueller is fired . . . Democratic representatives and senators can raise a fuss
in the halls of Congress, forcing their Republican counterparts to defend
Mueller’s job. If Republican lawmakers don’t take a stand, and Mueller is
fired, they’ll be tainted as enablers in the next election.

Trump’s recklessness is raising the stakes, such
that the only eventual remedy may be impeachment. The claims that Trump and his
legal team are putting forward are already radical: that Trump can’t be charged
with obstruction of justice because it’s in his power to terminate an investigation
at any time.

Trump,
if this account is accurate, is preparing to drive the political system over
the cliff. Democrats must try to be the brakes, and they need to slam on them
right now.

One historic parallel is the end of the Roman Republic when the Roman Senate allowed Octavian, who adopted the title Augustus Caesar, to place himself above the law and become the first emperor. Frighteningly, most Congressional Republicans seem prepared to allow something similar to happen to America. Yes, the trappings of the Congress and Senate would remain - just as they did under Augustus' take over of power - but true democracy will be dead.

Moral bankruptcy: Republicans laughing it up when millions would be harmed.

One can hope that Trumpcare is finally dead, but even if Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan - in my view two of the most horrible, amoral men in America after Der Trumpenführer - admit that they cannot summon the votes to pass a bill mostly motivated by a desire to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy, there remain numerous ways in which they can, and likely will sabotage the Affordable Health Care Act damaging access to health care for millions of Americans. Why would they do this? In my view, two main reasons: (i) they have lied about Obamacare for 8 years and they will want to make their lies become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and (ii) if they can cause the ACA to fail, they open a back door route to kill it and give those ever sought at tax cuts to the wealthy. That millions will be harmed simply doesn't matter because many of those to be harmed are viewed rightly or wrongly as as "those people" - blacks, Hispanics, people in big cities - and the rest don't matter in the GOP quest for a new Gilded Age. Paul Krugman looks at the insidious means of sabotage that may be employed. Here are highlights:

Is Trumpcare finally dead? Even now, it’s hard to be sure, especially
given Republican moderates’ long track record of caving in to extremists at
crucial moments. But it does look as if the frontal assault on the Affordable
Care Act has failed.

And let’s be clear: The
reason this assault failed wasn’t that Donald Trump did a poor selling job, or
that Mitch McConnell mishandled the legislative strategy. Obamacare survived
because it has worked — because it brought about a dramatic reduction in the number of
Americans without health insurance, and voters didn’t and don’t want to lose
those gains.

Unfortunately, some of those
gains will probably be lost all the same: The number of uninsured Americans is
likely to tick up over the next few years. So it’s important to say clearly, in
advance, why this is about to happen. It won’t be because the Affordable Care
Act is failing; it will be the result of Trump administration sabotage.

Notably,
[under the ACA] people aren’t automatically signed up for coverage, so it
matters a lot whether the officials running the system try to make it work,
reaching out to potential beneficiaries to ensure that they know what’s
available, while reminding currently healthy Americans that they are still
legally required to sign up for coverage.You can see this dependence on good intentions by looking at how
health reform has played out at the state level. States that embraced the law fully, like California and
Kentucky, made great progress in reducing the number of the uninsured; states
that dragged their feet, like Tennessee, benefited far less. Or consider the
problem of counties served by only one insurer; as a recent study noted, this problem is almost
entirely limited to states with Republican governors.

But now the federal
government itself is run by people who couldn’t repeal Obamacare, but would
clearly still like to see it fail — if only to justify the repeated, dishonest
claims, especially by the tweeter in chief himself, that it was already
failing. Or to put it a bit differently, when Trump threatens to “let Obamacare
fail,” what he’s really threatening is to make it fail.

On Wednesday The Times reported on three ways the Trump
administration is, in effect, sabotaging the A.C.A. (my term, not The Times’s).
First, the administration is weakening enforcement of the requirement that
healthy people buy coverage. Second, it’s letting states impose onerous rules
like work requirements on people seeking Medicaid. Third, it has backed off on
advertising and outreach designed to let people know about options for
coverage.

Actually, it has done more
than back off. As reported by The Daily Beast, the Department of Health
and Human Services has diverted funds appropriated by law for “consumer
information and outreach” and used them instead to finance a social media
propaganda campaign against the law that H.H.S. is supposed to be administering
— a move, by the way, of dubious legality. Meanwhile, the department’s website,
which used to offer helpful links for people seeking insurance, now sends
viewers to denunciations of the A.C.A.

And
there may be worse to come: Insurance companies, which are required by law to
limit out-of-pocket expenses of low-income customers, are already raising
premiums sharply because they’re worried about a possible
cutoff of the crucial federal “cost-sharing reduction” subsidies that help them
meet that requirement.

[T]his isn’t about policy, or even politics in the normal sense. It’s
basically about spite: Trump and his allies may have suffered a humiliating
political defeat, but at least they can make millions of other people suffer.

Can anything be done to protect Americans from this temper
tantrum? In some cases, I believe, state governments can insulate their
citizens from malfeasance at H.H.S. But the most important thing, surely, is to
place the blame where it belongs. No, Mr. Trump, Obamacare isn’t failing; you
are.

I'm sorry if I offend my Republican "friends," but Trump is basically human excrement. The man is foul and toxic and he is harming the nation - perhaps at Vladimir Putin's bidding - and will harm millions of Americans before his reign of terror is over.

Try as I might, I cannot get inside the heads of Trump voters, especially evangelical Christians who is the antithesis of the Gospel message that they purportedly respect. I was at a family funeral yesterday at a church I once attended many years ago and one of the readings struck me since it put in such sharp contrast what Christians should be doing versus the agenda of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general:

Matthew 25:35-4035 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me
in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I
was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see
you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38 When
did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When
did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Unless it impacts them themselves, Trump supporters are all too happy to support the trashing of the social safety net, bear a hatred towards those who are different, and flocked to support a rich man who throughout his life has done none of what the foregoing passages call for.

A column in the New York Times suggests that the answer to the question of why those who claim to be decent people voted for someone who clearly is not and who appears to be considering admitting guilt of crimes against America by trying to pardon himself and his family: a fear of downward social mobility and desire to blame anyone else for their predicament except themselves. I have written about the fear of loss of white privilege that I continue to believe motivated many Trump voters. But also at play is a refusal to adjust to economic change and modernity and discontent with the consequences of one's own bad choices, e.g., dropping out of high school, refusing to relocate for better jobs, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. One might call it a mindset of victim-hood even though a good portion of the circumstances they hate stem from their own actions. Here are some column highlights:

I have written before about the fear of falling
down the socioeconomic ladder, the fear of an irremediable loss of status,
authority and prestige — and the desperate need to be rescued from this fate.
But the topic bears further exploration because it has been such a prime
motivation for one slice of the electorate, the swing voters who made President
Trump’s unexpected triumph possible.

The question that persists
six months after Mr. Trump’s inauguration is why six key states — Florida, Iowa, Michigan,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, along with 220 counties nationwide — flipped
from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. Why did these voters change their minds?
These are men and women who are, in the main, still working, still attending
church, still members of functioning families, but who often live in
communities where neighbors, relatives, friends and children have been caught
up in disordered lives. The worry that this disorder has become contagious —
that decent working or middle class lives can unravel quickly — stalks many
voters, particularly in communities where jobs, industries and a whole way of
life have slowly receded, the culminating effect of which can feel like a
sudden blow.

One suggestive line of
thinking comes from Arlie Hochschild, the author of “Strangers
in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right” and professor
emerita of sociology at Berkeley. Hochschild has studied Americans whom she
calls “the elite of the left-behind.” Her findings shed light, I think, on the
concerns of some of the voters who tipped the balance for Trump last year.
Hochschild wrote to me that common refrains among these voters were “America’s
heading downhill” and “I think our kids are headed for hard times.” In these
conversations, she said,

it wouldn’t take
long before another topic spontaneously came up, blacks, their problems, their
call on government help. At the bottom of the imagined slide was the situation
of blacks — teen single moms, kids out in the street at night, slacking off in
school, drugs, drink. So, yes, the feeling was, “if we don’t turn this thing
around, that could be us.”

Nancy Isenberg, a history
professor at Louisiana State University and the author of “White Trash: The 400
Year Untold History of Class in America,” responded to my inquiry about
Americans anxious about losing their place:

Yes, the fear
was about rearranging the “pecking order.” But many working-class and
middle-class whites without college educations also hate poor whites, who they
see as lazy and worthless. Historically, poor whites have shared the same
stereotypes applied to poor blacks: lazy, uncouth, living on handouts, and not
just having too many children, but practicing “inbreeding.”

The 2016 campaign:

tapped into
anxieties of all who resented the government for handing over the country to
supposedly less deserving classes: new immigrants, protesting African
Americans, lazy welfare freeloaders, and Obamacare recipients asking for
handouts. Angry Trump voters were convinced that these classes, the “takers,”
were not playing by the rules (i.e., working their way up the ladder) and that
government entitlement programs were allowing some to advance past the more
deserving (white, native born) Americans. This is how many came to feel
“disinherited.”

There is no question that the communities where Trump received crucial
backing — rural to small-city America — are, in many ways, on a downward
trajectory.

From 1990 to 2009, the percentage of births to single mothers
among whites without high school diplomas grew from 21 to 51 percent; among
those who completed high school, the percentage rose from 11 to 34 percent.

The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2014 that the number of opioid
prescriptions outnumbered the number of people in 12 states. All 12 of these
states voted for Donald Trump: Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West
Virginia. . . . . the overdose death rates in 2015 for opioids,
including heroin, were far higher for whites, 13.9 per 100,000, than for
blacks, 6.6 per 100,000, and Hispanics, 4.6 per 100,000.

While whites
without bachelor’s degrees flocked to Trump in the belief that he was their
savior, the reality is that the many Americans are caught in a vicious cycle
that Trump is in no way equipped to address.

As these
processes continue and accelerate, many Trump voters — the neighbors,
relatives, friends, parents and children of those who have become mired in this
“geography of desperation” — are deeply apprehensive about what might happen if
Trump fails to fulfill his promise to make America great again.

Trump will fail to change this cycle because dropping out of school, not marrying, unwed motherhood, and drug use are all things that track back to personal responsibility - something the GOP claims to laud and even demand of individuals. In addition, globalization and economic and societal change will march on and many Trump voters will face a bleak fate if they do not let go of their fear of modernity and take steps to change their fate, steps that may include moving away from backward and/or economically depressed areas (the two usually go hand in hand).

Once again I find myself feeling either as I am reliving some of the high drama days of Watergate or, worse yet, Hitler's seizing of power in Germany in 1933. As the Washington Post reports, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, is exploring his powers to pardon himself, or his children, staff and other possible co-conspirators as the Russiagate investigations roll forward. Clearly, Trump increasingly sees himself as above the law and looks to utterly subvert the law and cover up criminal offenses. Obviously, a pardon is not necessary unless one is guilty of a crime against the United States. Moreover, accepting a presidential pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt. If Trump and his children - who seem to be garish modern day versions of Marie Antoinette - have commuted no crimes as claimed, why the need for pardons? I suspect that the truth is that they are guilty of many crimes - a reality that special prosecutor Robert Mueller may be getting closer to proving - and know that they are guilty. Here are article highlights:

Some of
President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special
counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against
what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s
authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family
members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of
those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the
president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said
the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of
his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

With
the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to
corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They
are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of
interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to
several of Trump’s legal advisers.

The president is
also irritated by the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his
family’s finances, advisers said.

Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been
informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. His
primary frustration centers on why allegations that his campaign coordinated
with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many years of Trump dealmaking. He
has told aides he was especially disturbed after learning Mueller would be able
to access several years of his tax returns.

Further
adding to the challenges facing Trump’s outside lawyers, the team’s spokesman,
Mark Corallo, resigned on Thursday, according to two people familiar with his
departure. Corallo did not respond to immediate requests for comment.

Trump is coming
face-to-face with a powerful investigative team that is able to study evidence
of any crime it encounters in the probe — including tax fraud, lying to federal
agents and interference in the investigation.

“This is Ken Starr times 1,000,” said one lawyer involved in the case,
referring to the independent counsel who oversaw an investigation that
eventually led to House impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.
“Of course, it’s going to go into his finances.”

Some Republicans
in frequent touch with the White House said they viewed the president’s
decision to publicly air his disappointment with Sessions as a warning
sign that the attorney general’s days were numbered. Several senior aides were
described as “stunned” when Sessions announced Thursday morning he would stay
on at the Justice Department.

Another Republican in touch with the administration described the public
steps as part of a broader effort aimed at “laying the groundwork to fire”
Mueller. . . . . “Who attacks their
entire Justice Department?” this person said. “It’s insane.”

[I]f Trump
pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set
off a legal and political firestorm, first around the question of whether a
president can use the constitutional pardon power in that way.

The power to
pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section 2, of the
Constitution, which gives the commander in chief the power to “grant Reprieves
and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of
Impeachment.” That means pardon authority extends to federal criminal
prosecution but not to state level or impeachment inquiries.

No president has sought to pardon himself, so no courts have reviewed it.
Although Kalt says the weight of the law argues against a president pardoning himself,
he says the question is open and predicts such an action would move through the
courts all the way to the Supreme Court.

I have always maintained that if Trump had nothing to hide, he would not have refused to release his tax returns or continually lied and attempted to undermine investigations. Only someone guilty of crimes behaves in such a manner. Trump and his entire regime, including Mike Pence, need to be forced to resign and, if appropriate, criminally prosecuted.

Other than trying to satisfy his own insatiable ego and narcissism, Donald Trump has only one god: money and acquiring more money. Like far to many, Trump needs things and money to instill a sense of self-worth. Whatever he got, he needed - and still needs - more. In light of his numerous business bankruptcies and literally thousands of lawsuits against his entities, American banks ultimately learned that he was a bad risk and the money spigot so crucial to supporting his purported real estate empire was turned off. That left him seeking loans from the Bank of China and from Germany's Deutsche Bank the latter of which is facing subpoenas and questioning from special prosecutor Robert Mueller as The Guardian reports:

Executives
inside Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump’s personal bankers, are expecting that the
bank will soon be receiving subpoenas or other requests for information from Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is
investigating possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

A person close to the matter who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of
anonymity said that Mueller’s team and the bank have already established
informal contact in connection to the federal investigation.

Tellingly, Deutsche Bank ceased making new loans to Trump quite some time ago. This left Trump ultimately with one source of funding: Russia and Russian oligarchs eager to move money out of Russia, much of it in need of laundering. A column in Esquire looks at how the quest for Russian money has now perhaps begun to unravel for Trumpenführer. Here are highlights:

It
was always about the money. The reason we never saw the tax returns was because
of what they would show about the money. The reason we can't get a straight
answer about the family's dealings with the Russians is the money. Preet
Bharara got fired because of the money and how the money had been allegedly
laundered. James Comey got fired because of the money. Without the money,
specifically the money from Russia, the Trump empire likely would have
collapsed under a hail of writs and the paterfamilias would have been rendered invisible,
even in the mirrors of Mar-a-Lago.

It
always was about the money. The meeting on June 6, 2016 ultimately was about
the money, as we learned today from CNN.
The network reported that it had identified the eighth participant in that
now-famous Trump Tower confab. Contrary to the previous load of hooey dispensed
by Junior and the first family, this dude was not a translator. . . . Here's Ray from The
New York Times:

In a nine-month inquiry that subpoenaed bank
records, the investigators found that an unknown number of Russians and other
East Europeans moved more than $1.4 billion through accounts at Citibank of New
York and the Commercial Bank of San Francisco. The accounts had been opened by
Irakly Kaveladze, . . . . More than $800
million was wired from abroad to 136 accounts that Mr. Kaveladze opened at
Citibank for Russian clients, and most of that was then sent to overseas
accounts . . .

It's not hard to
believe that Junior wanted this guy's name kept out of the stories, especially
now that, as the guy's attorney says, Robert Mueller has come knock, knock,
knocking at the door.

The fact is that
the president* was never as rich as he said he was, a circumstance that was of
outsized importance to nobody except his own narcissistic self. (I don't think
it would have changed a single vote if it had been revealed that he wasn't as
rich as he was saying he was.) He did, however, always have an outsized sense
of himself in the world. He had to keep acquiring to stay true to his
self-image. I believe the collision between these two factors left him with no
options but to obtain loans except overseas, and the Russian money was easy
money. Then he got elected president and it all unraveled.

If obstruction of justice doesn't take Trump - and his children and son-in-law - down, money laundering and other financial crimes likely will do so. Just imagine Ivanka in bright orange prison garb.

As noted numerous times, my gut feeling is that Donald Trump and his campaign sought to collude with Vladimir Putin's operatives to throw the 2016 presidential election to Trump. I further believe that Putin likely has blackmail information on Trump either involving personal misconduct - remember the "golden shower" rumor? - or more likely financial improprieties involving money laundering and/or undisclosed financial reliance on Russian funding, the latter explaining Trump's refusal to release his tax returns. As the train wreck that is the Trump presidency hurls down the tracks towards disaster, the increasing smoke plumes suggest that the Russiagate situation is likely far worse than many want to admit. Josh Marshall explains why:

Yesterday we
learned that President Trump had a second, undisclosed discussion with
President Putin for as long as an hour with only Putin’s translator present. In
other words, no other American citizen was there to make a record of or hear
what was discussed.

It’s been noted
that President Obama spoke for a few minutes one-on-one once with Dmitry
Medvedev when he was President or Russia. My understanding is that Medvedev
actually speaks decent English; so translation is less of an issue. But no one
had any reason to believe that President Obama was compromised by the Russian
government or somehow in league with it. We have plenty of reasons to believe
that about President Trump. (Is this circular reasoning? No, as I’ll explain in
a moment.) I see no plausible explanation for this latest revelation other than
President Trump wanting to discuss things with President Putin that he does not
want any other American citizen to hear.

I know that
sounds ominous and even hyperbolic. But what is the alternative explanation –
when all the other relevant evidence is considered? I can’t see any.

Add into the mix
that even if you think that most or all of the Trump/Russia stuff is a bum rap,
it is clearly the case that speaking privately with Putin for an hour – with no
witnesses – would raise an insane level of suspicion. Why would you do that?
You would only do that if you thought having the conversation was really,
really, really important. It’s not circular reasoning because the suspicion is
a fact; courting it for no reason is all but impossible to explain.

The mix of
President Trump’s bizarre toadying to Russia and Putin himself, combined with
the latest revelations about Don Jr and the rest make it no longer credible
that there’s any innocent explanation to this mystery. I think a lot of
higher-ups in government have not fully thought through and absorbed what this
means.

Since being sworn into office Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has routinely lied and ignored the rule of law and separation of powers as well as the independence of the FBI. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump made it clear that he wants the FBI to report to him and to be loyal to him personally. Allegiance to the U.S. Constitution on the part of government officials is nowhere on the radar screen for Trump who seemingly wants the FBI to act in the same manner as Vladimir Putin's intelligence agencies and secret police. Equally disturbing is Trump's threats toward the Justice Department and special prosecutor, Robert Mueller who is apparently investigating both Donald Trump, Jr., meeting that sought to collude with Russia and many of the Trump financial transactions. Should Trump attempt to fire Mueller, the parallels with Watergate will be almost complete but for the fact that Trump's possible crimes far exceed those of Richard Nixon during the Watergate era. Frighteningly, I have little faith in Congressional Republicans putting America first over the short term power of the Republican Party. Here are excerpts from the New York Times on the very troubling interview:

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president
also accused James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired in May, of trying to leverage a
dossier of compromising material to keep his job. Mr. Trump criticized both the
acting F.B.I. director who has been filling in since Mr. Comey’s dismissal and
the deputy attorney general who recommended it. And he took on Robert S.
Mueller III, the special counsel now leading the investigation into Russian meddling
in last year’s election.

Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller
was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned investigators
against delving into matters too far afield from Russia. Mr. Trump never said
he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline
circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as
he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political
toll in the six months since he took office.

Asked
if Mr. Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at
his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I
would say yes.” He would not say what he would do about it. “I think that’s a
violation. Look, this is about Russia.”

He
said that as far as he knew, he was not under investigation himself, despite
reports that Mr. Mueller is looking at whether the president obstructed justice
by firing Mr. Comey.Trump left little doubt during the interview that the Russia
investigation remained a sore point. His pique at Mr. Sessions, in particular,
seemed fresh even months after the attorney general’s recusal. Mr.
Sessions was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy and was
rewarded with a key cabinet slot, but has been more distant from the president
lately.

“Jeff Sessions takes the
job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair
to the president,” he added. “How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?
If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks,
Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’

The
president added a new allegation against Mr. Comey, whose dismissal has become
a central issue for critics who said it amounted to an attempt to obstruct the
investigation into Russian meddling in the election and any possible collusion
with Mr. Trump’s team. . . . Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. Comey told him
about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the
president.Mr.
Comey testified before Congress that he disclosed the details of the dossier to
Mr. Trump because he thought that the media would soon be publishing details
from it and that Mr. Trump had a right to know what information was out there
about him.Mr.
Trump was also critical of Mr. Mueller, a longtime former F.B.I. director,
reprising some of his past complaints that lawyers in his office contributed money
to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.The
president also expressed discontent with Deputy Attorney General Rod J.
Rosenstein, a former federal prosecutor from Baltimore. . . . He complained
that Mr. Rosenstein had in effect been on both sides when it came to Mr. Comey.
The deputy attorney general recommended Mr. Comey be fired but then appointed
Mr. Mueller, who may be investigating whether the dismissal was an obstruction
of justice.

The take away? Trump is a vindictive liar and only too willing to tell untruths about others and to throw the nation into a constitutional crisis in a desperate attempt to deflect attention from his own actions and the possible criminal activities of his son, son-in-law, and Trump sycophants. Be very, very afraid.

For years Donald Trump, Sr., has skirted the edge of the law and cut deals with both domestic and Russian mobsters, often in connection with his real estate projects. The latter have for years provided a means for dirty Russian money to be used to acquire real estate in America - the USA, unlike many other nations has few restrictions on foreigners buying property - which when sold effective launders the money and makes it "clean." Hence it should be no surprise that the now identified 8th person in the June, 2016, meeting with Trump, Jr., at Trump Tower had ties to money laundering. Literally, with every passing day some new sleazy and/or questionable detail of the meeting unfolds which further underscores the lies that were first used to explain the meeting which sought to collude with Russian operatives. Here are details from Politico on this new information (Note Senator Mark Warner's pointed comment):

The eighth
attendee at a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between top Trump associates and a
politically connected Russian lawyer is a business associate of a top Moscow
oligarch and was once the focus of a congressional money-laundering probe.

Irakly
"Ike" Kaveladze, until now the mysterious eighth person in the room,
attended the meeting on behalf of Aras Agalarov, a billionaire real estate
magnate with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a Trump family
friend. A lawyer for Agalarov has confirmed Kaveladze’s attendance to other
news outlets, though he did not respond to requests for comment from POLITICO.

Business filings
list Kaveladze as founder of a company called IBC Group, which shares a New
Jersey address — 333 Sylvan Ave. in Englewood Cliffs — with several shell
companies connectedto Aras Agalarov.

A POLITICO
reporter visiting the nondescript office building where all of these companies
are based found that the suite linked to Agalarov and Kaveladze was empty, with
unopened mail by the door. A sign in the lobby indicated that the suite
belonged to IBC and Russian Art Mall, which was founded in 2000 and registered
to Emin Agalarov, who is a partner in his father's business.

"They're
current on the rent. They're on our rent roll, they're just quiet," said
George Sayrafe, who said he has managed the building for 20 years. "I hadn't
heard anything. Some tenants bother you, you know what I mean? These people, I
haven't seen them in a long time."

Kaveladze’s
identity is among many facts about the 2016 meeting that Donald Trump Jr. has
failed to disclose in multiple public statements. And his background may add to
the questions members of Congress and investigators have about the meeting,
which Trump officials say was brief and inconsequential but which Democrats
call evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“I doubt if this
individual who had a history of setting up thousands of fake accounts in
Delaware was really there to talk about Russian adoptions,” Sen. Mark Warner of
Virginia, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, told reporters on
Tuesday.

Kaveladze was
named in a round of news stories in November 2000, after the General Accounting
Office issued a report on Russian money laundering through U.S. financial
institutions.

At the time,
Kaveladze was identified in contemporaneous news reports as the originator of
thousands of Delaware-based shell corporations.

Through his
company, which was at the time called International Business Creations,
Kaveladze formed 2,000 corporations for Russian brokers, which helped steer
more than $1.4 billion in wire transactions through U.S. banks, according to
the congressional inquiry.

The
Agalarovs and Kaveladze are represented by Scott Balber, a New York
white-collar defense attorney and former legal partner with Abbe Lowell, an
attorney handling Russia matters for Kushner.Balber
told The Washington Post
on Tuesday he got a call this weekend from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s
office seeking an interview with Kaveladze — an ask that marks the first public
signal the special counsel is investigating the Russia meeting.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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